


Neither Rain Nor Sleet Nor Skags

by conceptofzero



Category: Borderlands, Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-14
Updated: 2015-01-14
Packaged: 2018-03-07 13:23:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3174810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/conceptofzero/pseuds/conceptofzero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The mail must go through, even on Pandora.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Neither Rain Nor Sleet Nor Skags

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Twilit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twilit/gifts).



“THIS IS WHERE THE CARS LIVE! GET YOU ONE!” The Catch-A-Ride system yells out as PM gets near. She promptly skids behind the welcoming terminal and quickly reloads her assault rifle. Bullets slam into the metal column serving as temporary protection, as if somehow she needed a reminder that she was under attack. 

A car would be nice, but right now, a working shield would be even better. She checks the recharge time, hoping by some miracle that’ll be further along than it is. It isn’t. She has seconds to go and a Badass Psycho lurching his way towards her. 

“Wait! Come back! I won’t eat you! Really!” He screeches as he draws near, dragging his feet over the uneven ground. She doesn’t have any health on her and though there’s a full clip in her gun now, she knows it won’t be enough. Time to get desperate. She switches out for the shotgun and waits until she can nearly feel his rancid breath on her shoulders. “It’s time for THREE pounds of flesh!”

She jerks her shotgun around the side and pumps out as many rounds as she possibly can. It’s a Jakobs, so that’s the only reason she manages to bring him down with the last round before he can turn her into paste. He warbles out a death note and collapses, dropping his club and goes still. PM takes a breath finally.

That’s about when her shield finally kicks in, whirling to life and covering her a little too late. Still, she’s alive and that’s a win. PM carefully picks up the money the psycho dropped and then feeds it into the Catch-A-Ride station, quickly repicking her vehicle of choice - Bandit Technical, Sun Bleached. While it digiconstructs it for her, PM heads over to the bounty board to see if there are any new parcel deliveries for her region. 

There are two. She quickly selects them both and waits for the parcels to arrive. If she looks up just right, she can see Helios in the sky, and she can see it launch out the containers. They rocket through the sky and head for the ground. PM’s carefully to keep a good watch on them, because Hyperion isn’t too picky about where the parcels land sometimes. You can get crushed like a bug sometimes, and splattered all over the place. 

One lands where it should, right beside the bounty board. The other takes a detour and PM groans with frustration as she watches it land right in the middle of a bandit stronghold. Of course. 

She heads for the nearer parcel, letting it scan her fingerprints. When it confirms that it’s her, it opens up and she quickly gathers up the parcels inside, carrying them over to the car. These should be a pretty easy delivery. It’s medicine for a town two sections over. So long as she drives fast, she can get it there by the end of the day with plenty of time to spare.

The problem now is the other box. PM knows that the bandits can’t get into it, not with her hands anyway (and they’re both firmly on her wrists so she’s not too worried about that at the moment), but that doesn’t mean they won’t try, and that they won’t have it moved by the time she comes back. 

PM sighs to herself and heads for the nearest vending machine, stocking up on ammo. It might be a good idea to bring health too, but she can’t spot any of Dr Zed’s machines nearby. Maybe if she gets lucky, she’ll find one in the fort. She needs to do that delivery, especially if she wants to keep getting Hyperion contracts. Also, if she doesn’t want to end up dead. Hyperion is very strict about this kind of stuff. 

She climbs up into the vehicle and takes off for the fortress. PM knows other people would give up. Other people would have left Pandora a long time ago for something less stressful, Eden 5 maybe or one of the other hub worlds. She could go too. It would be easy to pack up, catch a shuttle and leave Pandora behind. 

But then the mail wouldn’t go through. It would sit there, gathering dust in storage rooms. Or worse, it would be stolen, opened, taken by those who it wasn’t meant for. The mail needed a champion on this barren little dustball of a planet. Somebody had to make sure that it arrived where it ought to, and that the recipients got their letters, even if they were dead and nailed to the walls of their shack by the time PM arrived. 

The mail is important. Each parcel is proof that a person can carve out a chunk of land, put a number and an address on it, and that people will send them things. Each letter is a reminder that the recipients exist outside of the ten by ten bunkers they called home. The mail is prosperity. The mail is proof of life.

The mail is civilization. 

PM hits the gas and the car roars forward, heading for the fortress. She arrives, guns a blazing. It’s not an easy fight, not a quick fight either. But an hour later, she walks out of that fortress, dragging the parcel box behind her. She didn’t find a machine with health in it, but she found a lot of crates and they worked in a pinch. 

The Parcel Mistress loads up every single last box and straps them all down before sliding back behind the wheel. She has deliveries to make. She has a civilization to keep intact. She is PM, and there’s nothing on Pandora that can stand in her way. 

PM hits the gas and runs over a skag on her way towards Dust, feeling triumphant and purposeful. It’s good to be a postal worker.


End file.
